Wood Rubber Stamp

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Wood Rubber Stamp

In May of 1993, Jennifer Mercer was fresh out of graduate business school at Florida State University. She was confronted with a problem. What business to start up ? Jennifer was short on funds and the economy at the time didn't lend itself to start-ups. After several months of exhaustive job searching, Jennifer learned that her grandfather Lawrence was retiring from a small office supply business in Lake City Florida. Lawrence wanted to sell his business but was unable, given the economic conditions. After speaking with Jennifer, Lawrence offered to cede the day to day business affairs over to her. If after a year Jennifer proved successful, the she could then take over the entire business. Jennifer accepted the offer and moved to Lake City.

Jennifer began managing her grandfather's business and quickly discovered it was in a state of disarray. One of the more formidable problems was a large inventory of rubber stamps that Lawrence had been unable to sell. If Jennifer could figure out how to sell the inventory it would give the business a huge boost and free up space for other products. Jennifer inventoried all of the rubber stamps and discovered there were four different types: Pre Inked stamps, dater stamps, Fax stamps and clothing stamps.

Jennifer did some research and came up with a few ideas. First: sell the Fax stamps. Jennifer traveled to the State Universities and visited their administrative offices. She had reasoned that there was a constant demand for faxed school records and transcripts. Jennifer met with school administrators and suggested that pre-Inked stamps could be used to indicate "Offical Transcript Copy" and the fax stamps could mark official acknowledgment that a given copy had been faxed. Once Jennifer was able to customize the stamp messages to official school letterhead and insignia, she was able to sell twenty pre-inked stamps and eleven faxed stamps. The beauty of seeing this niche, was that Jennifer could travel to several other schools and similarly sell all of her inventory of fax and pre-inked custom stamps.

On a lark, Jennifer also worked with her grandfather to produce wood handled stamps that bore multiple university insignias. She advertised these with a customization offer so that each university could choose their own individual message to be added to each stamp. This idea executed beautifully and resulted in a third of her stamp inventory being sold. Jennifer was officially on a rubber stamp roll. She went to nightclubs in the same university towns and sold customized pre-inked stamps with phosphorescent, glow in the dark ink. The stamps were ideal to mark club patrons who were old enough to drink alcohol.

Perhaps the biggest coup d'etat came when Jennifer devised a solution to selling her dater stamps. It took two cups of coffee on a Sunday morning to realize that supermarkets need the dater stamps to indicate expiration dates on food. In fact, this was mandated by law. After two weeks of traveling and meeting with various supermarket managers, she sold the dater stamps like hot cakes, and got rid of her remaining ink pad inventory as well.

The last remaining type of stamp were the Trodat clothing stamps. These stamps had the specialized purpose of stamping fabric; usually clothes and uniforms. Jennifer came up with the idea of selling these stamps to different linen companies that supplied restaurants. This solution seemed a bit odd at first glance. Jennifer had worked in a restaurant in her undergrad years and remembered how much linen they used; both in the form of tablecloths and kitchen uniforms. The linen companies needed to have a way to discreetly mark their linen to indicate their ownership, thereby reducing losses. The plan worked and Trodat stamps sold well.

Lawrence was elated with his granddaughter's success and handed full control of the business over to her. Lawrence was also surprised to discover that, no sooner than selling all the rubber stamps, Jennifer went and ordered a whole new inventory to sell along with biodegradable ink .

About the Author:

This article was written by Dwayne Cassidy. Dwayne is a small business owner who has personalized his business by purchasing
Rubber Stamps
at IdealStampShop.com for the greatest deals on
Custom Rubber Stamps
and ink supplies.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Rubber Stamps: The Solution